Android app icon size

Tek Eye

The icon for your app is quite important. It is the thing that represents your app on the Android device screen. Therefore, a professional and unique icon should be produced for your app. Making a set of app icons could be time consuming. However, Android Studio now has the Launcher Icon Generator to help with the process. Though using a graphics package like Inkscape to make Android icons can produce higher quality images. The Android icon size table in this article summarizes all the relevant information for the required icon sizes.

What is the Android Icon Size for an App?

Android launcher icons can be in jpeg (JPG) format, or more commonly in the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format. For all the launcher icons you will need two lots of six sizes of PNG or JPG files. One set of six icons are square, plus for newer versions of Android, one set of icons are round. Also, there is the high resolution icon to be produced for the Google Play store listing. The six sizes in pixels are 36×36, 48×48, 72×72, 96×96, 144×144 and 192×192. The Play store high-res icon is 512×512. These sizes are the absolute sizes of the icons. It was recommended in the past to allow for a small margin, hence the area the icon is drawn in will be a bit smaller.

For the, now rarely used, low density screens the 36×36 icon is used. However, Android Studio will not generate the default 36×36 icon. Instead, if the app is run on a device with a low density screen, and the 36×36 icon is not present, then Android will use the 72×72 icon scaled down by half. If required, the 36×36 icon can be included in the app for completeness.

Android Screen Densities

The number of dots (pixels) per inch that an Android device’s screen holds determines how sharp the image on the screen looks. The more Dots Per Inch (DPI) the sharper the image. Android will group screen densities into several classes, medium, high, extra high, extra extra high and extra extra extra high! These are referred to as MDPI, HDPI, XHDPI, XXHDPI and XXXHDPI. There is also a low density class, LDPI, however not many new devices have a low density screen and thus LDPI is no longer important. MDPI is around 160 DPI, HDPI around 240 DPI, XHDPI around 320 DPI, XXHDPI around 480 DPI and XXXHDPI around 640 DPI. (LDPI is around 120 DPI). It is the screen density that determines the Android icon size used.

Android Launcher Icon Name and Location

When a new Android project is created in Android Studio the launcher icon files are called ic_launcher.png and ic_launcher_round.png. You can choose to change the default icon using Android Studio’s built in Asset Studio:

To use Asset Studio open it from within Android Studio using the New menu then select Image Asset. This allows you to configure the launcher icon based on different clip arts, images and colors. The various size icons are created and placed into various mipmap folders in the projects res directory. The folders are mipmap-mdpi, mipmap-hdpi, mipmap-xhdpi, mipmap-xxhdpi and mipmap-xxxhdpi. It you need a low density, LDPI, icon create and put a 36×36 PNG or JPG in a mipmap-ldpi folder.

(In older versions of Android the folders used to be named drawable, i.e. drawable-ldpi, drawable-mdpi, drawable-hdpi, drawable-xhdpi, drawable-xxhdpi and drawable-xxxhdpi. For the very first version of Android, to support Cupcake devices, i.e. API level 3, a single drawable folder was used and contained the 48×48 MDPI PNG or JPG file.)

Notice how the reference to the icon only needs the mipmap part of the folder name. Android works out the correct density icon to use. Android will also scale one of the other density icons if an icon at a certain density is missing (though that may result in a fuzzy icon being displayed on the screen).

Android Icon Margins

The Android Operating System (OS) has evolved since it was released. This means that the icon requirements have changed over the years. The main changes for icons are to support the increase in screen sizes and screen densities. Low density and medium density devices were common. Now high density and extra high density devices are the most common.

Previously it was recommend that the icon included a margin around one twelfth of the total size between the edge of the icon and the image it contained. For example the medium density icon is 48×48 pixels, one twelfth of this is 4, giving a margin of 4 pixels around the icon’s image. This meant the area available for the image was 40×40 (48 minus the margin of 4 pixels on each side).

However, the bigger screens on today’s devices gives more room for the icons so a smaller margin can be used, for example one eighteenth of the icon size. The use of a margin allows image spacing between the icons on a screen, and to allow for any drop shadows, or parts of an image that sticks out from main image content.

The High Resolution Application Icon needed for the Google Play store must be 512×512 in size. This image can have a margin to allow for padding or drop shadows, for example it could be 464×464 on the 512×512 canvas giving 48 pixels for padding and drop shadows. Again the size of the margin may depend upon the type of image being used, but the final file will be a 512×512 in size.

Android Bitmap Assets Ratios

With the 48×48 icon as baseline the 6 launcher icons have the ratios 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 4. These ratios apply to the screen densities. So a high density screen (HDPI) is 1.5 times a medium density screen (MDPI). I.e. 1.5 * 160 = 240. Likewise for the other densities. These ratios generally apply to all images used in an app that target different screen densities. If a bitmap is 100×100 on a medium density screen use the ratios to calculate the bitmap sizes required for other densities (75, 150, 200, 300 and 400 in this case). When generating icons and bitmap assets work at a high resolution and scale down, this prevents pixelation of the images. E.g. a canvas of 576×576 or 864×864 is good for design work. An art-board of those sizes is bigger than the biggest icon required (512×512 for the Google Play store). Even better use a vector drawing package such as Inkscape which effectively allows working at any resolution.

Android Icon Size Table

The following table summarizes the above information, remember to have one square and one round icon for the six screen sizes (or just five if not supporting the out-of-date low density screens).

List of Android Icon Sizes and Locations in the Apps Project

Density	size	Location (under res)	Ratio	Screen	Margin
XXXHDPI	192×192	mipmap-xxxhdpi	4	640 DPI	12 to 16 pixels
XXHDPI	144×144	mipmap-xxhdpi	3	480 DPI	8 to 12 pixels
XHDPI	96×96	mipmap-xhdpi	2	320 DPI	6 to 8 pixels
HDPI	72×72	mipmap-hdpi	1.5	240 DPI	4 to 6 pixels
MDPI	48×48	mipmap-mdpi	1	160 DPI	3 to 4 pixels
LDPI (optional)	36×36	mipmap-ldpi	0.75	120 DPI	2 to 3 pixels
NA	512×512	Google Play	NA	NA	As required

You will find a handful of Android icons used in Tek Eye projects on the Free Launcher Icons, Menu Icons and Android Graphics page, and of course many thousands more on the web.

For information on designing Android icons see the Android Icons Style web page on the Material Design web site.

See Also

• See the Tek Eye Android Studio example projects to learn Android app programming.
• For a full list of the articles on Tek Eye see the full site Index

Author: Daniel S. Fowler Published: 2018-05-06

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Android App Icon Size Guide (4.0)

This article has now been superseded by the latest Lollipop 6.0 Android Icon Size Guide. Please click on the image below to view the latest information.

Find the correct Android App Icon Sizes, fast

For the latest information see: Simple Android Icon Size Guide for Lollipop 5.1 (5.1)

An icon is a graphic that takes up a small portion of screen real estate and provides a quick, intuitive representation of an action, a status, or an app. So, Icons should get people’s attention and can be much more efficient than words.

Your icon design for Android 4.0 should follow the general specification and be focused around three overarching goals:

• App Icons should combine beauty, simplicity and purpose;
• Icons should make life easier and be easy to understand, and never overwhelm with too many details. When people use your app for the first time, they should intuitively grasp the most important functions;
• Create and manage Icon sets for multiple densities to provide Icons in such a way that they will be displayed optimally on any device, regardless of the device’s screen size or resolution.

Size and Format

Android Icons should be 32-bit PNGs with an alpha channel for transparency. The finished Icons dimensions corresponding to a given generalized screen density, are shown in the table below.

Table 1. Summary of finished Icons dimensions for each generalized screen density.

ldpi (120 dpi)

Low density screen

mdpi (160 dpi)

Medium density screen

hdpi (240 dpi)

High density screen

xhdpi (320 dpi)

Extra-high density screen Launcher Icon Size 36 x 36 px 48 x 48 px 72 x 72 px 96 x 96 px Action Bar Icon Size 18 x 18 px 24 x 24 px 36 x 36 px 48 x 48 px Status Bar Icon Size
(Android 3.0 and Later) 18 x 18 px 24 x 24 px 36 x 36 px 48 x 48 px Dialog icon 24 x 24 px 32 x 32 px 48 x 48 px List View Icons 24 x 24 px 32 x 32 px 48 x 48 px

Let’s talk about detailed guidelines for the common types of icons used throughout Android applications. You can read where each types of icons are used in our previous post Android App Icon Sizes (3.0).

Table 2. Summary of Icons informations.

Sizes & scale

Proportions

Style

Colors

Launcher Icons Launcher icons on a mobile device must be 48×48 dp.Launcher icons for display on Google Play must be 512×512 pixels. Full asset, 48×48 dp Use a distinct silhouette. Three-dimensional, front view, with a slight perspective as if viewed from above, so that users perceive some depth. Action Bar Action bar icons for phones should be 32×32 dp. Full asset, 32×32 dpOptical square, 24×24 dp Pictographic, flat, not too detailed, with smooth curves or sharp shapes. If the graphic is thin, rotate it 45° left or right to fill the focal space. The thickness of the strokes and negative spaces should be a minimum of 2 dp. Colors: #333333Enabled: 60% opacityDisabled: 30% opacityColors: #FFFFFFEnabled: 80% opacityDisabled: 30% opacity Small / Contextual Icons Small icons should be 16×16 dp. Full asset, 16×16 dpOptical square, 12×12 dp Neutral, flat, and simple. Filled shapes are easier to see than thin strokes. Use a single visual metaphor so that a user can easily recognize and understand its purpose. Use non-neutral colors sparingly and with purpose. For example, Gmail uses yellow in the star icon to indicate a bookmarked message. If an icon is actionable, choose a color that contrasts well with the background. Notification Icons Notification icons must be 24×24 dp. Full asset, 24×24 dpOptical square, 22×22 dp Keep the style flat and simple, using the same single, visual metaphor as your launcher icon. Notification icons must be entirely white. Also, the system may scale down and/or darken the icons.

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Tips for Designers

• Use vector shapes where possible. When possible, use vector shapes so that if the need arises, assets can be scaled up without loss of detail and edge crispness. Using vectors also makes it easy to align edges and corners to pixel boundaries at smaller resolutions.
• Start with large artboards. Because you will need to create assets for different screen densities, it is best to start your icon designs on large artboards with dimensions that are multiples of the target icon sizes.
• When scaling, redraw bitmap layers as needed. If you scaled an image up from a bitmap layer, rather than from a vector layer, those layers will need to be redrawn manually to appear crisp at higher densities.
• When saving image assets, remove unnecessary metadata. Although the Android SDK tools will automatically compress PNGs when packaging application resources into the application binary, a good practice is to remove unnecessary headers and metadata from your PNG assets. Tools such as OptiPNG or Pngcrush can ensure that this metadata is removed and that your image asset file sizes are optimized.
• Make sure that corresponding assets for different densities use the same file names. Corresponding icon asset files for each density must use the same file name, but be stored in density-specific resource directories. This allows the system to look up and load the proper resource according to the screen characteristics of the device. For this reason, make sure that the set of assets in each directory is consistent and that the files do not use density-specific suffixes.

Android Icon Downloads

You can download archives (that you might find useful as you develop icons) using the links below:

The Android Icon Templates Pack is a collection of template designs, textures, and layer styles that make it easier for you to create icons that conform to the guidelines. The icon templates are provided in the Adobe Photoshop filye format (.psd), which preserves the layers and design treatments that used when creating the standard icons for the Android platform.

Action bar icons are graphic buttons that represent the most important actions people can take within your app. The download package includes icons that are scaled for various screen densities and suitable for use with the Holo Light and Holo Dark themes. The package also includes unstyled icons that you can modify to match your theme, plus source files.

Use color primarily for emphasis. Choose colors that fit with your brand and provide good contrast between visual components. Blue is the standard accent color in Android’s color palette. Each color has a corresponding darker shade that can be used as a complement when needed.

In Android Icon Templates Pack, v4.0 you can find also example materials:

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